


coup de foudre

by gdgdbaby



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: Crush at First Sight, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, Pre-Femslash, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gdgdbaby/pseuds/gdgdbaby
Summary: According to all the young adult books that Ellie has read on the subject, there's supposed to be something magical about your first day of high school.
Relationships: Ellie Chu & Edwin Chu, Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Comments: 30
Kudos: 170





	coup de foudre

**Author's Note:**

> introspective little thing leading up to the first time ellie and aster met, because i can't leave these kids well enough alone!!! some depictions of grief due to canonical parent death in this, please tread carefully if that is a trigger for you.
> 
> the title is a french phrase that refers to a sudden unforeseen event, in particular an instance of love at first sight. thanks to radialarch as usual for their peerless wisdom.

According to all the young adult books that Ellie has read on the subject, there's supposed to be something magical about your first day of high school. It's painfully obvious that none of the people who wrote those books had ever been to Squahamish High; Ellie is four periods in, and everything about today has gone exactly how she expected. The morning announcements began at 8AM sharp with a rousing crackle of feedback that made it impossible to understand anything Principal Wenger was saying, and she spent third period biology trying to stay awake through Mr. Cunningham's droning about the syllabus while also ignoring the class clowns in the back making increasingly crude jokes about his last name. Maybe the magic is in how the track around the football field always seems to expand when she's supposed to be doing laps during P.E. class.

It isn't all bad, fortunately. Hardly anything ever is. At the very least, she likes her language arts teacher; Mrs. Geselschap opened class with an irreverent syllabus and ended it mid-tirade, railing against the depiction of genteel poverty in _Little Women_. It’s one of the possible texts from which they are expected to pick a topic and hand in an opening book report. Ellie, who checked the novel out from the middle school library last year, has to agree with the overall assessment. Maybe she'll write about Jo March and the concept of womanhood just to ease herself into things.

Ellie eats lunch alone on the second row of the bleachers next to the track and field, scarfing down as much lukewarm mac and cheese and stringy green beans as she can stand. There's still twenty minutes left in the lunch period by the time she returns her tray to the cafeteria, but that's alright. She's in the ensemble band this year for her fine arts credit, having signed up to play piano after Mom had encouraged her to do it when they were picking classes last semester. Before she got sick — or rather, before they knew she was sick. "It'll help you make friends," she had said brightly, ever the optimist.

The gaping hole where her mother used to be is still a raw wound. For two weeks after the funeral, Dad barely ate or left the house. Ellie dulled the pain by trying not to look at it too closely; Dad did it with sleep. Over the summer, Ellie had to fill in as station conductor more than a few times, years of watching her father flip switches deeply ingrained in her mind. It made sense, the same way a C-scale does. Some things never change.

Now, Ellie's footsteps take her toward the corner of the school where the band room is. No one else is here yet, but the lights are switched on, and the chairs and music stands are set up around the room. Maybe Ellie can get set up early and noodle around on the keyboard until class starts.

Mom was the one who taught her how to play, first in China when Ellie was very young, and then later on the upright pianos at her other students' houses while Ellie tagged along. Mom had always had a way of getting people to do favors for her; even with the language barrier, she made friends as easily as Ellie devoured books. Their neighbors in Squahamish were more than happy to let Ellie practice even when her mother wasn't around. In the weeks after she died, some of them even came by with offerings of food and flowers and prayer, trying to help the only way they knew how, but that trickled to a stop after a couple of months of Dad's stony face every time someone tried to convince him Mom was in a better place. The last week of the summer, Ellie took the forty dollars she'd saved up for new notebooks, bought ten four-packs of Marie Callendar microwavable chicken pot pie from the supermarket, and carted them all home in the crate of her bike. Dad ate them, which was more than Ellie could say about the casseroles and creamy soups that sat in the fridge untouched, and that was that.

The electric keyboard in the band room is pretty different from a real piano; it doesn't have the full 88 keys for one, but there are several other settings for style and voice and transposition that seem interesting. Ellie sets her backpack down next to the stool, switches the thing on, and flows into Clair de Lune from memory. Debussy was always Mom's favorite.

The music helps. For the first time all day, it feels peaceful in Ellie's head. Here, she doesn't have to pretend to be something she isn't, to shrink away from unnecessary conversations or think about how to navigate the treacherous waters of high school life with a dead parent and an incomplete one. She can just sit here, fingers rippling over the keys, and _be_.

Ellie's so caught up in the piece that she doesn't notice someone else has walked into the room until they're standing right next to the keyboard. One moment, she's picking her way up an arpeggio, and the next she's staring at someone's midsection. She jolts to a stop so quickly that wrong notes jangle beneath her hands. "Sorry," she says, snatching them back into her lap, face burning.

The twinkly-eyed man gazing down at her shakes his head. "No need to apologize," he says, arms loosening from their fold as he smiles. "You sounded great. I'm Mr. Flores, the new band and choir director." He raises an eyebrow. "You must be Ellie Chu."

"Yes," she says, heartbeat settling a little. "I'm your pianist."

"About that," he says slowly, like he's turning something over in his head. "I'm not usually quite so forward, but desperate times call for desperate measures." His face turns serious. "The local church has been out an accompanist since Mrs. Lind moved away to be closer to her new grandchildren. All the volunteer replacements I've tried over the past few months have been… less than stellar. How would you feel about lending a hand?"

Ellie blinks. This really isn't the turn she thought the day would take. "What?"

Mr. Flores folds his hands into his pockets. "I'm also the new deacon, you see — after Father Shanley's health scare last year, the local parish hired me on. We just moved to Squahamish from Sacramento over the summer."

"I see," Ellie says, nodding along absently, and then shakes her head. What on earth is she thinking? "Well, I don't know if I can help. I'm not exactly — my father and I, we aren't Christian. We don't go to church." Even as the words come out of her mouth, Ellie winces. That's almost worse than not being white in a town like this, but maybe Mr. Flores gets that.

Miraculously, Mr. Flores just nods, looking thoughtful. "No wonder I haven't seen you around on Sundays." He rubs his chin. "Honestly, between you and me, I don't mind as long as you can play, which you obviously can."

Ellie is about to open her mouth and politely decline again when someone else pushes through the squeaky door. She glances over, intending to take this opportunity to delicately extricate herself from the conversation — and immediately stops short, breath leaving her in a big whoosh.

Into the room steps the most beautiful girl Ellie has ever seen in her entire life. She's dressed simply, in jeans and a gray henley, the heels of her black combat boots clunking against the carpet. Her hair is long and dark and wavy, and her eyes are a warm brown, and she smiles when she sees Ellie — no, no, that's not it. She's looking at Mr. Flores as she strides forward, backpack swinging from one shoulder.

"Aster," Mr. Flores says, and his voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "Meet Ellie!"

"Hello," Aster says, turning that beautiful face towards Ellie for a brief, stunning moment. Ellie had just managed to get the buzzing in her ears under control, and now she feels a little bit like her chest is going to cave in. "Dad, do you have any snacks in your office?"

"What, lunch wasn't enough for you?" Mr. Flores shakes his head, eyes crinkling as he grins. "Ellie, Aster is my daughter, and one of the vocalists in the choir."

Aster laughs, a loud, honking noise erupting from her chest. It's quite possibly the best thing that Ellie has ever heard. "Stop, Dad. Vocalist sounds so, I don't know. Self-important. I just sing sometimes."

Words crawl up Ellie's throat before she can stop them. "I'll accompany you," she says, mouth dry, and panics when a look of confusion passes over Aster's face. "I mean." Ellie coughs a few times and tries to smile at Mr. Flores. "I'll do it. I'd be happy to be the church accompanist." If Mr. Flores is the new deacon, that means Aster will probably be at the chapel every week. Ellie doesn't have time or energy to examine why that seems like such imperative information to have, but her heart's racing in her chest again, so she has bigger fish to fry. Maybe she's getting sick.

"Oh, that's excellent news, Ellie," Mr. Flores replies, returning Ellie's smile with a relieved one of his own.

"Can I make a request, too?" Ellie says before she can chicken out, shoring up some hitherto unforeseen bravery, and swallows thickly when she sees Aster tilt her head out of the corner of her eye. Mr. Flores gives her an encouraging nod. "There's no piano at home," Ellie continues, all in a rush. "And it would be nice to practice in the band room, if I could come by after school some time."

"Of course," Mr. Flores says, sounding surprised but pleased. "Whatever you need. You can use the piano at the church too, if you like. Lord knows it's always gathering dust during the week." He checks his watch; outside, Ellie can hear the jostle of other students coming down the hall, the cacophony of their overlapping voices. "I'll give you the sheet music for a few hymns when we meet after lunch tomorrow, and if you come a bit early on Sunday morning we can run through them together before service."

"Great," Ellie says, though she doesn't even know how early that means. "Looking forward to it."

Ellie remembers very little about the rest of the school day after that. It passes in a blur; she scribbles idle nonsense in the margins of handouts and manages to get her backpack strap caught in the corner of her locker twice during passing periods. She and Aster don't have any other classes together, but Ellie spends most of the afternoon thinking about her anyway. It's not until the final bell rings that Ellie realizes she was daydreaming so hard during geometry that she forgot to take down whatever homework Mrs. Whittaker scribbled on the whiteboard before she left the classroom.

It doesn't really matter, though. In that 40-minute period after lunch, once all the introductions and syllabus review were out of the way, Mr. Flores had them play a piece together just to gauge everyone's level. Ellie could play Scarborough Fair in her sleep, so she focused on Aster's voice instead as her hands went through the motions. Her voice was sweet as a bell, clear and bright. Ellie's still thinking about it as she trudges out to the bike rack in front of the school. She doesn't even mind that much when she's riding home uphill and the pickup truck idiots start yelling _chugga chugga chu chu_ as they pass. It's a lazy joke; there's no point in getting mad about it.

Dad's sitting in front of the TV when Ellie gets back; there's a half-finished pot pie on the small fold-out table in front of him. Charlie Chaplin is playing on screen. She debates telling him about the church thing, but figures it can wait until later, once she's sure it's going to be longer term. Mom had been friends with some of the church ladies, had taught their kids how to play piano, and Ellie doesn't want to accidentally brush up against something Dad would rather not touch right now. There will be time for that later.

Instead, Ellie climbs the ladder up to her room. She stares at the ceiling for an hour, give or take, reliving how Aster's mouth had formed around the words _then she'll be a true love of mine_. Then she finally pulls her binders and her pencil case out of her backpack and attempts to start her homework.

So maybe the books were right. Maybe there _is_ something magical about the first day of high school after all, even in a town like Squahamish. Who knew?

**Author's Note:**

> it occurs to me that this version of events makes "i'm ellie chu" even more hilarious in context, which i love.
> 
> i yell about things on twitter at @[boldsurvive](https://twitter.com/boldsurvive)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] coup de foudre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24286255) by [growlery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery)
  * [[podfic] coup de foudre](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24295138) by [duckgirlie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckgirlie/pseuds/duckgirlie)




End file.
